Motorola Xoom + Bionic-September Edition

I had this review all ready to go. Then the mailman rang my doorbell and delivered the second device I’ll be reviewing over the next several months in cooperation with Verizon. Y’all. I finally have a smartphone that I don’t have to give back after a week. And it is SMART. I thought the HTC Thunderbolt could see me soul, turns out the Thunderbolt was just a precursor to the Motorola Droid Bionic.

Look! I’ve already documented how glamorous my life is:

I’ve tried out several different phones with Verizon over the past few months and the Bionic is by far the smartest and most well organized of all of them (I’m hoping the Bionic battery is better than the Thunderbolt battery.) I have almost everything set up and customized the way I like it and I haven’t even gotten into the feature that allows me to share files wirelessly between my Mac and the phone.

It has all the same things I liked about the Thunderbolt, huge super sharp screen, 8MP camera with flash (good flash!) and the Verizon 4G LTE service. However the Thunderbolt had a few widgets I liked better, not because they worked better but because they were prettier. Hey? I like well designed stuff.

Most of my friends have iPhones, and while I do enjoy the ease of an iPhone I really like how customized you can make an Android phone and tablet with widgets. Both the Xoom and the Bionic have a google, weather, twitter and email widget installed so I can see what’s going on without actually having to open anything. Not to mention the gallery widget so I can stare at my babies.

There’s only a few design quirks with the Xoom that I’d like to change, one being that the power button is on the back. Not a huge deal or dealbreaker but I’ll admit, I’m used to that one main home and sleep button on an iPad or iPod. The Bionic is big, but surprisingly lightweight.

I’m headed out to hang with a bunch of geeks tonight, I’ll see if some of them can’t teach me a thing or two about smartphones, apps and a whole new world I’ve never experienced before.

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Disclosure: I have received both devices and six months of service to facilitate in my review and experience. I’m working with Verizon, all opinions are my own and I am not being compensated for them.

Comments

Longtime lurker here. I got the Droid Bionic about two weeks ago. Battery is better than the Thunderbolt, but still too puny for me. Got the extended battery (Ebay!) for $40, and now I’m in heaven. Enjoy your new toy!

I’m a longtime iPhone user..but have been sooo thinking about going Android. Hubby has a Motorola Atrix..and I like that it is so very customizable like you mentioned. It also seems like you can get so much FREE STUFF with Androids that you can’t with an iPhone )O: